Google Messages is officially rolling out its long-awaited ‘Delete for everyone’ option, but it comes with a slight catch rowan.davies@futurenet.com (Rowan Davies) | usagoldmines.com

• Google Messages has started rolling out its ‘Delete for everyone’ feature
• It was first spotted in February, and now users are starting to gain access to the long-awaited messaging function
• The feature is being rolled out slowly, but users have noticed some setbacks

Embarrassing texts are the worst, we’ve all been there, but Google has plans to crush that feeling and is starting to roll out a ‘Delete for everyone’ option in Google Messages for Android – just a few months after initial rumors.

The new unsend function will soon have two different options, the first being ‘Delete for me’, which is already part of Google Messages’ ecosystem, and the second being its upcoming ‘Delete for everyone’ button that, as its name suggests, will remove messages from the view of other contacts.

A handful of users have started to notice the new ‘Delete for everyone’ option in Google Messages already, but not everyone has it yet, implying that it’s being rolled out gradually. One user with access posted a screenshot to Reddit showing what the new function will look like once it’s rolled out widely.

RCS message delete is also rolling out to beta people. from r/GoogleMessages

We first heard of Google’s plans to introduce an unsend button back in February when Android Authority shared an APK teardown, and the site’s writers managed to get it working in March. A feature like this has been a long time coming for Google Messages, but even when it does roll out it’ll come with some slight drawbacks.

So far, ‘Delete for everyone’ is limited to large group chats

When it comes to unsending texts, Google Messages is behind the likes of WhatsApp and iMessage, which have offered the ability to delete messages for everyone in a chat for quite some time. It’s good to see that Google is catching up, but there are still two catches you should note.

As discussed in our previous reports, it’s likely that Google will stick with its 15-minute window for its ‘Delete for everyone’ feature, meaning that if you want to remove a text from a conversation, you’ll have to act rather swiftly. But that’s not the only issue that users have noticed.

Although the Reddit post above gives an insight to how Google Messages’ new unsend feature will look, the user also draws our attention to the feature only being accessible in larger group chats. For them, ‘Delete for everyone’ only works in a group chat with 12 members, and they have yet to find a 1:1 chat that allows them to delete messages for everyone.

As it stands this new function has a lot of limitations, but because it’s only in the very early stages of roll out we’re hoping that Google will amend these once it’s widely available to all Google Messages users.

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